The Doctor's People
by Sarah the nerd
Summary: Two old companions reappear in the TARDIS and the whole group heads off to a holiday planet. But something dark and sinister is happening there, something that will test them all...
1. Chapter 1

On the wall of the little girl's room there was a picture of a horrifying green monster, with sharp teeth and sharp claws and a nasty, cruel smile. It was not a picture any child could look at without feeling that crushing childhood sensation of an unnamable adult fear.

Below the picture was the little girl, lying on her bed, listening to a voice in the darkness.

"Your mother," the voice said, "was an evil woman."

"Really?" the girl whispered.

"At night when you were a baby she took a knife and stabbed you. She would have killed you, but you were brave and pulled through."

"No."

"Yes, yes, she did." That voice in the dark was worse than any picture on the wall. "She _did_."

"I believe you," the girl whispered into the dark, "Turn the light back on, I'm scared."

And the man smiled and said,

"I _know_."

**THE DOCTOR'S PEOPLE  
**

Sometime off in time and space...

"Jupiter," said Amy.

"Tudor England," said Rory.

"A 1920 jazz club."

"The rainforest."

"Theme park planet," said the Doctor. "I think you'll agree I win."

"Theme park planet?" Amy asked.

"Wellllll, it contains over a thousand separate theme parks, and it is owned by an Earth corporation that went intergalactic, oooh, forty-eighth century. They have a wonderful selection of candyfloss, drinks and ice cream from all over the universe..."

"Tell me they have Ben and Jerry's! I like their Chunky Monkey."

"I'm afraid both Ben and Jerry have passed away by this point," said the Doctor, sounding rather sad. "They have flavours including sausage, bacon and fish custard...I may have slipped a bit of paper on a desk at some point. Anyway, the planet is owned by a company called TomorrowCorp, who I'm told are jolly nice people..."

Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

"Hold that thought," the Doctor said. "Who could that be?"

"Don't you have a way of checking who's outside?" Rory asked.

"Yes," the Doctor said, "but it takes the fun out of it."

He strolled to the door and flung it open. A man and a woman, both dressed in black and holding guns, stood there. They stared. The Doctor stared back.

"Who is it?" Amy called.

The Doctor stepped to the side. "Martha. Mickey. Do come in."

Uncertainly, the couple stepped into the TARDIS.

"Seats!" the Doctor yelled. "You need seats." He paused. "We don't have any seats. Well, make yourselves comfortable. Amy, Rory, this is Martha Jones and Mickey Smith."

"Actually, she's..." Mickey began, but then Martha spoke, softly.

"Doctor? It is you, isn't it?"

The Doctor approached her. And smiled.

"It's me all right."

"You've changed things round a bit."

"Yeah, I do that."

"You've changed...everything."

"Yeah. Sorry about that."

"No, don't be sorry...I married Mickey."

"Yes, I thought you did. Good for you! Good for you both. Hello, Mickey! Great to see you." They shook hands.

"Um," said Rory.

"Rory! Amy! Don't be shy!"

The two couples looked at each other curiously, and then Martha made the first move.

"So! You're the new ones. His new companions! Welcome to the TARDIS!"

"Only I get to say that," the Doctor whispered.

"I'm Martha, I traveled with the Doctor too, a few years ago. He was a bit different then."

"A bit different?" Amy asked.

"We'll save that for another time," the Doctor said. "Amy, Martha helped me save the world. Now she carries a gun...I don't like that, Martha, get rid of the gun."

Martha obediently put it down.

"Much better."

There was a brief, awkward pause, and then Martha said. "You're wearing a ring! You're married?"

"Yes," Amy said.

"To me," Rory cut in.

"That's so great! Congratulations!"

The two women looked at each other for a moment, and then, in one of those rare moments that sometimes happens between people, simultaneously swept each other up in a hug.

"Has he taken you on honeymoon?" Martha squealed.

"Yes! It was brilliant! There were monsters and it all got quite complicated but it was _brilliant_!"

"This is the best way to travel _ever_."

"I love it! Love it to _bits_."

"We went to the forty-second century!"

"We fought vampires in Venice!"

Immune to the sudden excitement in the room, Rory and Mickey just looked at each other.

"Mickey, right?" Rory asked.

"Yeah. Rory, right?"

"Yeah. Rory...Pond."

Mickey nodded slowly. "Mickey Smith."

"So, what century are you from?"

"Twenty-first."

"Oh. Same as me."

The Doctor popped up from behind the console, where he had taken the opportunity to fix a loose wire. "So! Everyone acquainted?

"Doctor," Mickey said, "you haven't even asked how or why we're here."

"Oh yes. You're right. How and why are you here?"

The two of them looked at each other.

"Well," Martha began uncertainly, "when we last saw you...I mean, the last you...you walked away and we thought that was it. That we'd never see you again. We had all these talks about whether we should track you down or whether we should...just get on with things. Because you might not have regenerated into anything like the person we knew."

"And we had jobs to do," Mickey said. "We worked for Jack, for UNIT, we did a bit of everything."

"We looked out for you, though," Martha said. "We kept an eye on the world. There was something about some strange things going on in a village called Leadsworth..."

"Yeah, that was us," Rory said.

"And all sorts of other stuff. And we were just...walking about in Cardiff, we'd been to see Gwen, you know Gwen...and we turned a corner and the TARDIS was there. So we knocked on the door. And here we are."

"Here you are," the Doctor repeated. He was silent for some time, and then said. "Well...we're off to a distant planet. Want to come with us?"

Mickey and Martha exchanged a glance.

"Yes," Martha finally said. "Yes, we do."

"Excellent! Mickey, Martha, we were heading off to Brian One."

"We were doing what?" Rory asked. "I thought we were going to the theme park planet."

"Brian One_ is_ the theme park planet. It's named after a bloke called Brian."

"Oh, right, that makes perfect sense."

"Amy! Rory! Mickey! Martha! Please take your places around the console and do exactly what I tell you."

With considerable glee, they took their places.

This was the way to travel.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well done, everyone," the Doctor said approvingly. "_Slight _judder as we landed, but never mind, practice makes perfect."

"Doctor," Rory said, "we're in Disneyland."

"Yes, we do appear to be," the Doctor said. "It's moved here."

They looked at it with curiousity.

"Space Mountain's changed a bit," Mickey said.

"Minnie Mouse has changed a bit," Amy said.

"Kindly direct your attention to this map," the Doctor called, and they all turned around. "Other attractions include...a water park, but it's exclusively for fish people. Biscuit Land...not sure how that works. David Beckham land?"

"I'll choose!" Amy said, and pressed her face close to the map. She pointed her finger. "This one. Land of _horror_. The highest and most dangerous rollercoasters, it says here. And 'the most terrifying attractions in the known and unknown universe.'"

"Are you sure?" Rory asked. "I mean..."

"What?"

"I'm not a fan of..."

"You're scared," Amy said cheerfully.

"No, no, not scared, I just don't fancy the idea of, you know, being scared for _fun_."

"Alright, whatever."

"I'm up for horror land," Mickey said.

"I think I'd prefer..." Martha glanced at the map. "This one. A nice swimming pool and restaurant."

"Yes," Rory said, "that sounds much better. Why don't you come with us, Doctor...hey, Doctor?"

The Doctor was glancing skywards, surprise on his face. And concern.

"Doctor?" Amy said.

"Yes. I mean, you four go ahead and have fun, I'll see how my fish custard ice cream measures up, and I'll meet you all back here in a few hours. Feel free to let yourselves into the TARDIS." He waved at them. "I'm sure at least one of you has a key. Bye bye!"

And he fled.

The four companions watched him go with curiousity.

"Shall we treat this as a holiday?" Rory finally said.

"I think so," Amy said.

"Okay," Martha said, still looking out at the Doctor. "You're sure he's not going to end up in trouble?"

"Oh yeah...he will," Amy said. "But he'll be fine, he'd tell us if he wanted us along, right?"

"I suppose," Martha said. "What's he like, then, this new one?"

"Well," Amy said, "we don't really know what the old one was like."

"He was wonderful," Martha said sadly, "and I sort of miss him."

Amy paused to consider this, but couldn't come up with anything to say.

"Shall we get going?" Mickey asked.

"Yeah, let's," Martha said. "Who's going where and who with?"

"I'm off to _horror land_," Amy said.

"I'll go with you," Mickey said. He shot a quick questioning glance at Rory, and Rory shot a quick nod back.

"I'll go to the pool, then," Martha said. "Just swim around for a bit."

"Pity I'm gonna miss that," Mickey said.

"I'm going to the pool too," Rory said. "Not to swim," he added hastily, with a look at Mickey.

The four of them all stood around, somewhat awkward.

"Right! See you," Martha said, and gave Mickey a quick peck on the cheek.

"See you, Mr Pond," Amy said to Rory, and gave him what could be best described as a subtle snog. "Gotta go!"

The two pairs headed off in opposite directions.

And someone somewhere watched them.

* * *

Amy and Mickey headed towards the rollercoasters.

"So, when'd you meet the Doctor?" Amy asked.

"A long time ago. He was a different one to Martha's Doctor. Looks like we all got a different one."

Amy nodded thoughtfully.

"I never knew there was more than one." She said it with a hint of nervousness, as secrets were about to come out. "I always thought there was just my one."

"He never explained it to you?"

"No."

"He never explained it to anyone. Not even Rose."

"Who's Rose?"

"Oh, someone else who traveled with him."

"There's been a lot of us," Amy said. She sounded more glum than jealous.

"Yeah, well, you're doing...good. You're doing good. I mean, you're married to the man you're traveling with."

"That's true, but..."

"Do you love him?"

"What was that?"

"Do you love Rory?"

"No," she said sarcastically, "I'm just settling for him while I wait for Robert Pattinson to become available."

"Alright, alright."

A pause.

"So...you said I was doing good."

"Yeah."

"What does that even mean?"

"Well, um, people don't always have such fun traveling with the Doctor," Mickey said. "I came out of it and now I've got a wife and I travel the world and I'm _better_, a better man. But it wasn't fun. Not all the time. Hardly ever, for me."

Amy stared at him like he'd confessed to a crime.

"Why?"

"Because he took this girl who meant so much to me."

"Rose?" Amy said.

"Yeah."

The thought of riding rollercoasters and experiencing pure horror had been temporarily forgotten. They sat down on a bench.

"When you say took her..."

"She was in love with him. She never forgot him. Even when we were in a completely different world she never forgot him. And when I was with them in the TARDIS I was a third wheel, ignored pretty much. And laughed at."

"He doesn't sound nice, your Doctor," Amy said.

"He didn't have to be, he saved the world."

Amy thought that was strangely profound. She didn't say so though. As she often did, she filed it away to be agonized over and changed the subject to something more cheerful.

"Shall we go then? That looks like it over there. Where that massive tower is."

Both stood and looked at the tower. They were about to walk into a place that promised horrors, but that tower _threatened _horrors. It looked so out of place. And the windows looked like a pair of red, angry eyes.

"Is that one of the rides?" Mickey asked.

"I dunno. Let's go see."

She took his hand- this was something that Amy just did with everyone- and they ran towards it.

* * *

Rory tried very hard not to look at Martha in her bikini. Not that he fancied her at all, but she might see him looking and think he was _staring _and who knew what unpleasant things might happen. Martha stashed her clothes (it had to be some kind of army uniform, Rory thought) in one of the many lockers and turned to him.

"There's a place over there where you can buy swimwear," she said. "Well, actually, they sort of design it for you on the spot, with some sort of machine. It's quite cool."

Rory nodded.

"You not coming in the water?"

"No, no, I'm okay."

Martha slid into the pool and swam up and down before returning to the side. "You look like you have something on your mind."

Rory had been staring at the huge rollercoasters on the horizon, and hadn't really heard. "What?"

"You look like you have something on your mind."

"Oh. Yeah. Loads of things."

"Like what?" When he didn't answer she grinned and said, "You can trust me. I'm a doctor."

"A real one?" Rory asked, startled out of his thoughts for a second.

"Yeah, a real one. Passed my exams and everything. Unlike some other Doctors."

"I always wanted to be a doctor. I'm just a nurse."

Martha climbed out of the pool and sat on the deckchair with him. "Well, every nurse I know has a hard time. Everyone always takes them for granted, and makes them run around like crazy trying to help everybody, and has them do all the nasty jobs..."

Rory paused. "That sounds about right."

"And they never get much credit."

"That's about right too."

There was a brief silence and then Rory said, "The Doctor just went off without us. Did he used to do that with you?"

"Sometimes."

Somewhere above them there was the sudden whirr of a camera. But Rory spoke over it.

"I don't know...I think...I think Amy could do this forever. Just hopping about from world to world. But me, I don't know. We got married, we went on our honeymoon, we stopped off in New York to pick a new wardrobe for Amy and now we're here, and I just want some _quiet_. I think. Maybe. But I don't want to go back and have a normal life either. Everything's just gotten so confused."

"So you got married, like...a few weeks ago?" Martha said.

"It feels like a few days ago."

"Uh-huh."

"And so happened before that, it's hard to explain. I _died_. And then I came back and I guarded Amy for two thousand years and I don't know, we're here now and both of us have at least two sets of memories and it's all very..."

"Wait, what? You died?"

"Yeah. And we've never really sat down and talked about it, not properly, never talked about the future..."

"Wait...you _died_? How did you come back to life? Because I know this one man who...does that a lot."

"I don't know, I just did. The Doctor can explain it better than I can. But anyway, that's what's on my mind. All that crazy stuff. And you're really good to talk to, Martha, I just wish I was talking to Amy instead...what is it?"

Martha was looking at the sky.

"That's a camera," she said. "That's a camera I've heard a lot about."

Rory looked. "Is that bad?"

"I need to find my trousers!"

"What?"

"Rory! Help me find my trousers!"

* * *

Amy and Mickey stood inside the Land Of Horror, neither feeling particularly horrified.

"There's a very large amount of clowns here," Amy said.

"Guess a lot of people are scared of clowns."

"Are you?"

"Not really. You meet scarier things than clowns in the TARDIS."

Amy wondered what he meant- the various monsters or the Doctor?- but she tried not to dwell on it. "Where shall we go first?"

Mickey glanced around. "Well, there's pretty long queues for everything." He headed for one of the many holographic maps. "The world's highest roller coaster. The world's most haunted haunted house. The world's most evil Italian restaurant..."

"Or the tower," Amy said.

They both looked at the tower.

It was indeed a ride. There was a line of people lined up for it, including children, all of whom looked perfectly cheery. Above them floated a few cameras, and it all looked perfectly safe and normal.

"Shall we get in line?" Amy asked.

"Yeah, alright," Mickey said.

They looked at each other _almost _as if they were daring the other one to back down first, and joined the queue.

* * *

Martha had pulled open all the lockers and located her trousers. From one of the pockets she pulled a small device, and then she jumped onto one of the chairs.

"What are you doing?" Rory asked.

"It could be nothing," Martha said, "but it's _never _nothing around here..."

Her device beeped, and the camera fell down and she caught it. She climbed off the chair.

"Yeah," she said, "it's not nothing."

"What is it?"

"That camera," she said, pointing to it, "is a telepathy camera. It records you _and _it records what's in your head. They're illegal almost everywhere."

"And they're illegal here?"

"Yeah, I would have thought so. This friend of mine, Jack, he had this incident involving one of them...and these three women...and these five men."

"What?"

"The point is is that it shouldn't be here. And remember how the Doctor just looked up and ran off? He might have seen one too. Look at the logo on it, it's distinctive, it looks like a tower with eyes."

"Why didn't he tell us what he was doing?"

"He's just like that. Always like that. I suppose."

"Well," Rory said, when she didn't elaborate, "what should we do?"

"Well, I'm going to get out this bikini-"

"You're-"

"And go to find the Doctor."

* * *

It took only a few minutes for Amy and Mickey to reach the end of the queue. When they stepped in through the door, the tower was quiet. Deadly quiet. Far quieter than a simple rollercoaster ride ought to be. And there wasn't another person in sight.

A single cart was on a track.

"After you," Mickey said.

Amy stepped in, and Mickey after her.

"Wait," he said, "there's no seatbelts-"

The cart took off at the speed of sound. Before Amy knew it, they were plummeting and looping and screaming and screaming-

-and then they stopped.

"What, was that the ride?" she gasped. And then she saw it.

The track had come to an end, but behind them there was a mangled body on the track. It was a man, arms spread out, face down. Amy climbed from the cart, terror in her veins.

"Mickey!" she shouted. "Help me!"

Mickey was in a daze, so it seemed, but he climbed out too. Amy reached the body and turned it over.

"No," she whispered. "No, no, no, no!"

It was Rory. Or it looked like him. And on his barely visible face was an expression of sheer horror.

Mickey stared down in bewilderment.

"No!" Amy screamed. "No, not again! No! No! No!" She actually reached out to the body and tried to pull it from the track. "_No_!"

Mickey came back to his senses, picked her up and pulled her away.

"Amy! Amy, look at me, think about it. Rory's with Martha. How could he be here?"

"It looks like him!" Tears were running down her face.

"Amy, it's not him, it's got to be an illusion. The ride promises pure horror, right? What could be more horrifying than seeing your loved ones dead? It isn't him."

Amy broke free of his grip and stared down at the body. And stared for a long time.

"It looks like him," she said again. She was still crying.

"It's not him. Let's get out of here, Amy."

Amy very slowly moved away from the corpse and fell into step with Mickey, who had already started walking.

"There must be an exit," he said, but there was fear in his voice too. And then he stopped dead.

"Oh god no," he said.

"Mickey!" Amy panicked. "What is it?" But then she saw it too. Another corpse. This one was a woman, a blonde woman, her blood still seeping into the ground...

"Rose," Mickey said.

Amy stared down at this girl she didn't know, and then Mickey let out another scream.

"_Martha!_"

Because she was there too.

"Mickey," Amy said, terrified and shaking, "_how do you know it's not them_?"

"Because Rose can't be here!" Mickey screamed. "She's somewhere else, I left her behind! Let's _run_, okay? _Run_!"

So they ran.

But the place was a maze of caves and it was dark, and getting darker, and someone somewhere was screaming. And when they realised they could run no more and collapsed on the cold ground, a voice echoed out.

"Mickey the idiot," it said.

"Who's that?" Amy snapped.

"Mickey the idiot, just look at you," the voice continued. "Lost in a blooming cave! Why you came with me I don't know. You never saved the world, you never saved anyone or anything."

"Who is it?" Amy screeched into Mickey's ear.

"My Doctor," Mickey answered.

"But he sounds like he's from the North!"

"Lots of planets have a north. Apparently."

"Rose is dead," the voice said. "Rose is dead, your wife's dead, they're all dead, Mickey, and it's your fault."

Mickey was rooted to the spot and silent. Amy pulled at his clothes.

"Come on! We have to find a way out."

"Yeah..." Mickey said dizzily, "yeah..."

They ran again. This time the cave widened out, and there was light...

...and a final corpse.

"Oh no," Mickey said.

Amy was silent.

It was the Doctor, Amy's Doctor, and he was lying on the ground with his eyes closed. Beside him was the sonic screwdriver, but someone or something had stepped on it, and its wires were exposed and the light was flickering green and red.

"You know it can't be him," Mickey said.

"It could," Amy whispered. And she walked towards him.

"Amy, don't," Mickey said. "It's trying to trick us. That voice back here, all the bodies, they're trying to scare us, that's all..."

"It could be him," Amy said again. The lights were going out.

"Amy! Come back! I can't see you," Mickey called out in a panic. The lights dimmed and dimmed, Amy knelt by the body-

-and something grabbed her shoulders.

"_AAAAAAAAAAAAAH_!"

"Amy!" Mickey shouted. "Amy!" He charged into the blackness, fists raised, hit something in the face-

-fell over the still-kneeling Amy, and the lights came back on.

The Doctor was standing there, next to his own corpse. He'd raised the sonic screwdriver and turned the lights on again. With his other hand he was rubbing his face.

"Doctor," Amy said in relief. She crushed him in a hug, and kissed his cheek.

"Oi! Watch it there, Mrs Pond. I'm fine, please don't squash me! I've just been whacked in the noggin after all." He gently untangled himself from her arms. "Were you worried about this?" He poked the corpse with his toe, and pointed the screwdriver at it. The image of the Doctor faded, to be replaced with a robotic human form. It was a metal dummy, so it appeared, silver with a blank face.

"So they are all images," Amy said. "There are, right? Tell me they are."

"They are."

"Rory's okay?"

"Yes, I imagine so. He's with Martha? She'll look after him."

Mickey sighed in relief and looked around.

"I'm not complaining, Doctor, but how did you get here?"

"Walked in."

"Really?" Amy said. "We had to _queue_."

"Yes, I found an even more uncomfortable way. Remember when I left you four, not too long ago? I'd spotted something a bit out of the ordinary. One of these." He pulled a small metal camera-like thing from his pocket. "This is a very complicated, very clever, very illegal recording device. They're telepathic, they can read thoughts, and I wondered what one would be doing on this planet."

"I've never seen anything like that before," Mickey said.

"No, no, it was Jack who told me about them. Apparently he got into a bit of trouble involving one of them, two men, four ladies, an Auton and a sentient yacht. Anyway, I followed this one until it went to the tower and through a door. I went through the door and was hit very hard on the head. I woke up here in a very dungeon-like place, soniced the lock, went up some stairs, heard the pair of you screaming and here we are!"

"...Right." Mickey said. "Right, right, that's good."

There was silence...until, far off in the distance, there was another scream.

"I don't like that," Amy said. "Doctor, what should we do?"

The Doctor turned to Mickey. "Okay, Mickey Smith, any ideas?"

"You're asking me?"

"I am."

"Oh, um, well...we need to find out who's screaming. And save them."

"Couldn't have put it better myself! Let's go."

He took both Amy's hand and Mickey's and they marched into the dark.


	3. Chapter 3

Martha and Rory were hurrying through the crowds.

"How are we going to find the Doctor?" Rory asked. "This is a whole planet! How do we know where he's gone?"

"I know the Doctor," Martha answered. "He'll have gone to the place where all the danger is. And what does that tower look like to you?"

Rory looked at it, and then saw Martha holding up the camera.

"Oh. A tower with eyes."

"He'll be there."

* * *

Mickey, Amy and the Doctor walked back through the caves.

"Don't worry if you see anything scary," the Doctor said. "It won't be real. Of course, you know it's not real now, but it still might affect you. Just concentrate on other things."

"What's doing this?" Mickey muttered.

"I have a feeling I know."

"And?" Amy said, when he didn't continue.

"And it's horrible, Amy, horrible," he whispered.

* * *

Martha and Rory reached the Tower.

"No need to wait in the queue," Martha said. "There's probably a back entrance. And I can unlock it, I've got tools on me."

They slid away from the crowds, as far away as they could get. It wasn't easy, but they managed to reach the tower. They pressed up against it.

"I don't think I've ever had to rescue the Doctor before," Rory whispered.

"We're probably not rescuing him," Martha said, looking for a door or an opening. "He'll have everything under control, you'll see."

* * *

"Oh dear," the Doctor said. "Things are spiraling out of control."

Amy let out a gasp.

There were several hundred bodies in the cave they'd just entered. Men and women of many different species...and some children.

"Don't look," the Doctor said. "This is my head that's doing this. Just keep walking. We have to go through here. Keep on walking." He didn't look well at all.

"Doctor," Amy said, "Doctor, you look terrified."

"I am," he said. "Don't look at any of them."

"Why not?"

"In case you see someone you know!"

They walked. Amy found herself closing her eyes, and thinking back to that time so long ago with River and the Angels. Weird, how time flew, how she'd been so different back then...now, she'd seen so many dead bodies.

"Amy!" Mickey whispered.

"Rory!" she whispered back, before realising it wasn't him.

"Rory's ok, Amy," the Doctor reassured her. "I promise."

They continued, and then they reached the door, and only the Doctor looked back. Amy thought she heard him say something under his breath, but she didn't know what it was.

"Doctor," she asked, "are you okay?"

The Doctor nodded.

"What are we looking for, Doctor?" Mickey said. "It must be something pretty powerful to do all this."

"No," the Doctor said. "Not that powerful. Just full of spite and malice and disregard. Probably human."

"Hey," Amy said.

"Listen to me, both of you, because this is _important_. What you see here isn't real. You'll be scared but now your fear can _kill people_, understand? So I want you both to concentrate, concentrate on all that you hold dear. They're trying to trick you..."

"Who is?" Amy said. "What are they doing, what's killing people?"

"This place, this planet, this tower, it's a killing machine. Just remember, Amy, Mickey, please just remember that nothing you see down here is real!"

Just then Rory and Martha burst into the cave.

"Except for them," the Doctor said.

"Amy!" Rory shrieked, and ran to her. "Amy, I saw, I saw..."

"I know," she said, as he crushed her in a hug. "Me, dead, yeah? I saw you dead."

"Amy, what is this? What's happening?"

Martha too had her arms around her husband.

"Everybody!" the Doctor called, and everybody stopped and paid attention to him. "Nice to see you again, Martha and Rory. Nice to see you were able to get in here _without _being hit on the head."

"Doctor," Martha said, "what is _going on_?"

"This tower is a transmitter," the Doctor said.

"OK," Mickey said, "what's it transmitting?"

"Fear."

* * *

In the highest room of the tower a bloke called Brian was sitting in an armchair, sipping some champagne, staring out over his little world and basically pretending to be a Bond villain. In his room there was a raging fire, a drinks cabinet, a bookcase, and it all seemed very cosy and jolly until you turned around and saw the torture chamber on the other side of the room.

An old man was hooked up to a machine. He was very unwell, probably dying, but defiant eyes were glaring out. Brian finished his champagne and sauntered over. (He was very good at sauntering and did it all the time.)

"All your friends are dead," he said in a voice which didn't match the demeanor at all. "It's time to talk. Who's gonna blame you?"

The man spat in his face. Brian rolled his eyes a bit and cleaned himself up.

"Right, well, that wasn't nice."

He pulled a switch on the wall and turned away. When he turned back the man was dead, sheer terror etched into his features.

"You didn't call out your loved one's names," Brian said. "Maybe you didn't have any loved ones. Who knows."

He rang a bell which would bring someone up to dispose of the body.

* * *

"What's happening is this," the Doctor said. "Everyone who enters this tower, this _ride_, they're exposed to their worst fears. Loved ones dead and mangled on the floor. Darkness, mazes, no way out. They're terrified. That _sheer amount _of terror, from so many people, is deadly. Transmit it to someone's brain and they're dead. That's what somebody, something, is doing here. Killing people with terror."

"Oh my God," Martha said.

Something occurred to Rory. "You said this planet was owned by something called TomorrowCorp?"

"Yes! Yes I did! Well done Rory."

"You said they were nice people!"

"I said I was _told _they were nice people."

"Did Jack tell you?" Martha asked, after a long pause.

"Yes."

"I think he met them a good few centuries ago."

"Who _is _Jack?" Amy said.

"You'll meet him one day and you won't know what hit you," the Doctor said. "Aha!"

They had turned a corner and a teenage girl was there. She had been the one screaming, and she was still, at varying intervals, at it. She was kneeling by a corpse, too.

"It's not real," the Doctor said, approaching her. "That body? It's just a illusion."

The girl was so distraught she seemed to barely understand, but then in one shuddering movement she lifted her face to the Doctor.

"Who are you? Can you help him?"

"I don't have to, he's not real."

"What do you mean?"

"None of this is real. It's designed to scare you, to scare everyone. What's your name?"

"Ghost."

"Your name's Ghost? What, for real?"

"Yeah. Ghost."

"Fair enough. Who's that?"

In a shaky voice the girl said, "My father."

"And was your father on the ride with you?"

"No. He's not on the planet. It's just me, me and some friends..." She dissolved into tears again. "Is my father dead?"

"No, he's not." The Doctor took out the screwdriver, pointed it at the body, and once again it faded into its dummy form. "See."

Ghost stared in amazement. She slowly stood up, still shaking, and wiping her eyes. "It's really not real?"

"No."

"Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor. This are my mates- Amy, Martha, Mickey and Rory."

"Oh."

"D'ya know a way out of here, Ghost?"

"No."

"We're going to have to do things the old fashioned way then. Martha, what've you got in those pockets?"

"Um, let's see...there's this pocket flamethrower thing we took off a Sontaran, my phone, my TARDIS key, a stun gun, a sort of zipwire thing, some tiny bombs from the 51st century..."

"Good lord, you carry far too much weaponry now. Hand over the bombs."

Martha did. The Doctor waved the screwdriver over them and announced, "Stand back."

They did. The Doctor tossed one into the air and covered his ears, and although there was no noise there was an explosion, and suddenly an exit from the caves.

"They're noiseless," Martha said, as the Doctor looked at her quizzically.

"Ah, of course."

One by one they exited through the hole. Far off in the distance was the rest of the Land Of Horrors, and no-one had noticed them at all.

"Right," the Doctor said. "Everyone alright?"

Everyone nodded, expect for Ghost, who said, "Thank you, Doctor, thank you so much," and hugged him. The Doctor hugged back, grinning. "Another hugger! Brilliant."

"What now?" Amy asked.

"I'm going to find Brian, the owner of all this. If he hasn't got something to do with this I'll eat my hat. We need someone to take Ghost back to her friends, so I'm going to go for the logical choice of the doctor and the nurse. Martha, Rory, see her to safety and-"

"Let me come," said Ghost.

"Sorry?"

"You saved my life. Whatever's going on, let me help! My friends won't even notice I'm gone."

"I doubt that," the Doctor said, "but, ok, the more the merrier. Now, before I was hit on the head, I noticed all the cameras were heading to the tower, the top window of the tower. I'll willing to bet a lot of money that that is where we'll find Brian."

"What do we need to bring?" Mickey asked.

"Nothing. Just your brains."

* * *

Brian Wilkinson (that was his full name) was bored. There weren't any more torture sessions scheduled, and he had nobody around he could talk to, largely because he'd killed them all.

He eventually sauntered out of the main control room and down the corridor to where the cameras and screens were kept. He sometimes kept someone around to review them, but today only he hadn't been bothered.

"Let's see the Doctor, then," he said to the empty room.

One of the screens flickered to an image of the Doctor, Martha, Amy, Rory, Mickey and Ghost heading to the tower. Brian tapped the keyboard nearby.

"Who are his friends?"

The camera ran back through the footage it had gathered, of the Doctor and the others by the map, and managed to connect each name it had to its owner.

AMY

MARTHA

MICKEY

RORY

"Right, thanks, computer," Brian said idly, and kept his eye on the screen.

* * *

"This might get dangerous. There's a dangerous man up there. Ghost, are you sure you want to come?"

"Yes."

"Right, I guess I can't stop you."

"You're not even trying to stop her," Rory said in exasperation.

"You, zip it. Let's go, everyone."

"How are we getting to the top window of the tower?" Mickey asked.

"Good question, very good question. Martha, hand me that zipwire thing."

Martha reached into her pocket.

"Doctor, I don't even know what this is. It's from UNIT."

"Luckily, I know what it is. It's designed to move people-" he threw his arm out in a gesture to them all- "from one place to the other. Handy for letting whole armies cross rivers, get out of holes, that sort of thing. It can easily get six people to one window. Let's have it!"

Martha handed it over. It seemed to be little more than a length of rope in a ball.

"Another time," he said, examining it, "I would warn you about the dangers of carrying around technology you know nothing about. But we're busy right now so I'll lecture you later."

"Can't wait," Martha said, almost sarcastically.

The Doctor poked it with the screwdriver and announced it ready for use. "Right. I'll just throw it up here-" he said, and threw it towards the window. It was a spectacular throw, but fell short. "Right," he said. "Okay then-"

Ghost suddenly took the rope from his hands and threw it. It was a amazing throw, and the rope shot into the air and attached itself to the window. The other end of the rope dangled down for them to hold onto.

"Wow," said the Doctor. "We'll leave all the throwing-in-the-air jobs to you from now on." He reached out and touched the rope.

"Everyone hold on," he said. "Just hold on, that's it. Honestly, it'll work."

So they all held on. And suddenly, in a flash, they were hanging just below the window.

"Okay," the Doctor said, "keep holding on, everybody."

He reached up with the screwdriver and unlocked the window. "Right. Everyone. Be careful and put one hand on the windowsill and raise yourself up, okay? Go."

* * *

Brian Wilkinson came sauntering down the corridor to meet them. He'd called down to the theme park and got a few of his more devoted followers to provide backup. They waited in the corridor with guns, a few of them nervous but the majority not in the slightest.

Brian walked into the main control room just as the Doctor and the others were falling through the window. And the Doctor didn't see him look at Ghost in a way that made it very clear he knew who she was.

The Doctor looked up. "You must be Brian," he said. And then, in a much darker voice, he said, "We want a word with you, Brian."

"I'm sure you do, Doctor."

"Yes," the Doctor said, thrown. "Yes, I am the Doctor. How...did you know that?"

"Oh please. _Everyone _knows you. These little cameras of mine..." He looked around the room for one to gesture to, realised none were there and continued without missing a beat. "they've been wired up for years and years to alert me to anyone...timelordy. We know we're doing bad. We knew you'd come to stop us. Unfortunately we're one step ahead of you."

"In what way?" said the Doctor, and he cast a silent look at Martha.

"You can't reach us. We're...unreachable. Nor you, nor your little gang of wide-eyed innocents can talk us out of it. We torture people, creatively, in order to make money. We use people and toss them aside. We are _very much _the bad guys, us TomorrowCorp men, and you've never met anything like us before. I killed three people before breakfast today, and you can do _nothing _about it."

Martha slid behind him and shot him with the stun gun. He fell to the floor unconscious.

"Thanks, Martha," the Doctor said, and turned to Ghost. "By the way, I want to make it clear that I don't advocate violence, but that was a special case."

Ghost nodded, her eyes oddly vacant.

"Doctor," Mickey called. "There's people coming down the corridor, with guns!"

"That's bad," the Doctor said. "Close the door!"

Mickey closed it. The Doctor jumped forward and locked it with the sonic screwdriver.

Everyone in the room was silent.

"Now we're trapped in the room!" Amy howled.

"Don't worry, I have a brilliant plan," the Doctor said. "It should occur to me in a couple of seconds."

There was a hammering on the door, and then someone started shooting.

"Now what?" Rory said.

Ghost suddenly and unexpectedly burst into tears.

"You didn't say it'd be like this!" she screamed. "I don't want to _die_!"

"You won't die," the Doctor said.

"You're not going to be a dead Ghost," Amy said, but the humour was lost on the girl in question.

"Rory," the Doctor hissed, "you're good with people, calm her down."

As the shooting continued, Rory slid towards Ghost. "Hey, hey, you're not going to die, alright? We'll all get out of here fine. The Doctor doesn't let anyone die."

"Liar!" Ghost whispered, suddenly a completely different person.

"What?"

"Liar! He let _you _die!"

Suddenly there was a loud explosion and the door flew off its hinges. The Doctor instantly raised his hands, and gestured for everyone else to do the same.

"Your leader on the floor there isn't dead, he's just unconscious," he announced. "...Please don't kill us."

"I second that," said Amy.

"Yeah, and I third it," said Mickey.

The man in front, who was carrying a huge half-gun-half-flamethrower, slowly lowered the weapon.

"On the floor, all of you!"

They all hit the floor.

"Doctor," the man said. "You're coming with me. And your companions are going to stay here, in this room. When Mr Wilkinson wakes up things are going to be _very _interesting."

"No," the Doctor said. "No, you're not going to do that."

"Hit him," said the man.

Someone hit the Doctor very hard on the head. And the whole world turned black as night.


	4. Chapter 4

Amy, Martha, Mickey and Rory sat in one corner of the room, opposite the unmoving form of Brian Wilkinson.

They had fought the best they could, but against several armed men, and armed only with a stun gun, they had been easily overpowered. All of Martha's amazing toolkit had been taken away (apart from the TARDIS key, which was invisible to the guards) and they had been tied up and left to await their fate.

Mickey was nearly out of his bonds, but it was taking quite a while.

"So," Rory said. "Ghost's not human."

"Yeah," Mickey said. "And they took her along with the Doctor."

"Did you see what she did to him? One whack on the head and he went down. And earlier...she said something, something she couldn't have known."

"What about?" Amy asked.

"About me...dying that one time."

"You died?" Mickey said. "What, _really _died?"

"Yeah, really died."

Amy was silent. And Rory felt her shiver. "How could she have known that?"

"I don't know."

Mickey finally freed himself. "Right," he said, and began working to free Martha. "How'd you die?" he asked, making what passed among the Doctor's friends for casual conversation.

"It's all a bit blurry now, but I pushed the Doctor out of the way of a laser or bullet or something."

Mickey paused. "Blimey," he finally said, and helped Martha up from the ground.

"We are in _so much trouble_ if that guy wakes up," Amy said. "Look at the stuff in here. Look at that machine. And there's more robots like we saw in the caves, the ones they used to look like corpses. They've got like an army up here." While Martha untied her, she seemed almost to drift into her own thoughts. "You ever met the Daleks? I met the Daleks."

"Yeah, I did," answered Martha.

"These people are worse, aren't they? Much worse than the Daleks. I didn't think that was possible, but..."

"It is," Mickey finished. All of them were freed now and he looked at all of them, and then to Brian Wilkinson. "He's unconscious. He's dangerous. We should kill him."

No-one answered.

"That's not what the Doctor would do," Rory said, eventually.

Mickey looked him in the eyes. "You took a _bullet _for the Doctor. You died right in front of him, right?"

"Right," Rory said nervously.

"Did he ever thank you?"

Everyone was quiet, even Rory, and then Amy said. "No. He didn't. But he doesn't do that sort of thing, to anyone."

"Mickey," Martha said. "we can't just kill an unconscious man. Rory's right, think of what the Doctor would do."

"No," Mickey said. "We're alone in this torture chamber and that man is going to torture us to death. It's the lesser of two evils, Martha!"

"We're not doing it!"

"No," Amy joined in, "we're bloody well not!"

Mickey waved his hands in frustration and fury. "Jack!" he finally said. "Think of Jack. We've known him almost as long as we've known the Doctor, and _he's_ saved the world. Do you know what he did, Martha? You do know, don't you? That was the lesser of two evils! All the time, that's what he does, and it works!"

"I'm never, ever, ever going to-"

"Could someone please explain this to me and Rory over here!"

"Just think, the Doctor's always so upset about people dying, and he never once stops to consider that if he killed the bad people, the good people wouldn't die!"

"You listen to me, _Mr Jones_-"

"Think about Torchwood and Jack!"

"Mickey, sweety, you don't _know_ Jack!"

Silence fell on the room. Amy giggled despite it all. And then-

-someone groaned.

All eyes in the room turned to Brian Wilkinson. He'd woken up.

* * *

The Doctor and Ghost sat in a dark room.

"So, you're a robot," the Doctor said. "Like the corpses in the tower, you're an illusion."

"Yes," said Ghost.

"The ghost in the machine," the Doctor said with a sigh. "I should have guessed."

Ghost said nothing, just sat straight and blank like the android she was.

"So," the Doctor said, "what were you, Ghost? All the bodies in the tower were created from memories and thoughts. You're a memory. What of?"

Ghost turned to look at him. Behind her eyes the Doctor thought he saw cogs and wheels turning.

"I was a girl."

"What was your name?"

Ghost seemed to think. "Grace."

"Grace. I'm the Doctor, Grace, and it's nice to meet you." He held out her hand and she shook it, displaying again her tremendous strength.

"I didn't want to hit you. When that man, his name is Andrews, gives me an order I have to do it."

"That's okay. It didn't hurt that much. Listen, Grace, I have to save my friends. What can you do to get us both out of here?"

Ghost/Grace seemed to be thinking.

"Your friends," she finally said. "One of them _died _for you."

"Yes, I..."

"One of them is angry, _very _angry, and maybe he's always been. One of them is thinking about...her parents. She knows them but she doesn't. She's worried she'll die and leave them alone. And the last of them...tried to destroy Earth."

"What! Oh...yeah, Martha tried to do that. A while back. With the best intentions, of course."

"They're all afraid."

"Grace, tell me, how are you doing this?"

"I'm a memory, I can read other memories, other thoughts!"

"Right. That could be useful," the Doctor said.

* * *

Amy, Martha, Mickey and Rory backed away. Brian Wilkinson unfolded himself from the ground like a monster, pushing boxes and wires and blank, staring robots to the floor, and said:

"Who shot me with the stun gun?"

"Me," Mickey said.

"No," Martha said. "It was me. If you're going to kill who it was, it was me, alright?"

"Martha!" Mickey screeched.

"Relax," Brian said, eyes rolling. "We don't just _kill _people here."

* * *

The Doctor said, "Right, Grace, can you smash down this door?"

"No," she said. "I've been in here before...it can't be done."

"Right. Well, this is the last time you'll be in here, Grace. I promise."

Grace went quiet.

"Listen, you can read minds," the Doctor said. "You can help save us, Grace. I need you to think very hard. Can you read the mind of Brian Wilkinson? He's going to kill my friends, and I _must _stop him."

"I'll try," Grace whispered. "What good will it do, though?"

"I haven't got a plan yet but I'm thinking of one. Go, Grace! I know you can do it."

Grace closed her eyes.

"He's there, he's awake," she whispered. "He's going to kill them, Doctor."

"He. Is. Not."

"He's thinking...he's thinking about a girl...Amy!"

"What about Amy? Grace! Tell me!"

"He's thinking Amy looks like me..."

"What?"

"He thinks that if he was anybody else, that would make it harder to kill her."

"What do you mean?" The Doctor reached out and touched her face.

Tears started running down Grace's cheeks.

"Doctor, I'm his daughter. I _was _his daughter."


	5. Chapter 5

"Did you _know_?" the Doctor whispered.

"No," Grace sobbed. "I didn't know. I'm a ghost, Doctor. I'm a ghost."

"No," the Doctor said. "You're not, you're Grace. You're Grace and you're real and you're going to save us."

"My father made me work for him, after I died," Grace whispered. "I remember now. I can feel it. I was a trap. I trapped you. I was meant to get you here, so they could kill you. A crying girl who'd you'd come save. They'll kill your friends and show you their corpses and then they'll kill you!"

"Grace," said the Doctor.

"What?"

"Grace, they can't kill me. People have tried."

"I don't believe you," Grace said.

"Alright, fine, that was me exaggerating. But they're not going to kill _anybody anymore_, Grace."

He stood up.

"I need to ask one more thing of you. Because my idea has finally come to me."

"What do you need me to do?" she whispered.

"Grace, you're part of the transmitter, aren't you? The thing that kills people with pure fear. That's why you have those abilities. It's all one big psychic network."

"Yes," whispered Grace.

"There's other robots like you dotted about this place. I guess they have thousands, and this is where they keep them. If we could activate all those robots, we can have them break the door down, and save the others. But they only react to fear, and only you can connect yourself up to them. I might be able to take over once they're activated, use this scary brain of mine, but now I need you to _be afraid_."

"I'm not a human," Grace whispered. "They only react to humans."

"You've got a human soul in there, Grace!"

* * *

Brian started towards Amy.

"Girls first," he said.

"If you want her you'll have to kill me," Rory said.

"Oh, shut up," said Brian. "I get that so much."

Rory suddenly ran forward, fists raised, but Brian easily caught him and flung him aside.

"Right! I'm sure you've guessed how this works. All the fear felt by the people in this tower is transmitted up here. Where it can kill you either slowly or instantly. It's up to you." He smiled. "Just think, when _you _were in the tower, you must have killed at least one of my victims with all that screaming."

"You're a monster," Martha said.

"We should have killed you," Mickey snarled.

"Yes, yes," Brian said. "You. Redhead. You're first."

* * *

"I can't be afraid," Grace said. "I can't feel anything except sadness! That's what I was made for! I was programmed to cry and scream in grief."

"Grace," said the Doctor, "I'm going to do something terrible. Something you will never forgive me for."

"What?"

"Grace," the Doctor said, "your father killed you."

* * *

"Amy!" Martha screamed. "Amy!"

Amy herself was screaming. Mickey ran forward, but like Rory he was thrown to the ground. Martha picked up the nearest thing- the head of a robot- and hurled it. Brian dodged it, and laughed, and dragged Amy ever closer to her death.

And then Rory started screaming, but in the voice of someone older, wiser, wilder and desperate.

"She's already been dead once!" Rory shouted. "You think _you _can kill her? You're pathetic! Amy's been a walking paradox! A girl whose parents didn't exist, a girl who wasn't _born_! And I've not existed, and I've lived for thousands of years, sort of, and I can _fight _and win! I don't know what Mickey does but it's probably awesome, and Martha knows everything about anything and owns her own flamethrower! We're the Doctor's people! Between us we've got the memories of thousands of years back and forth and through all of time! You can't beat us, I know for a fact you _can't_."

For one very brief second Brian Wilkinson was stunned into silence, but then he just laughed.

"Oh," he said, "that's nice."

* * *

"He killed me," Grace whispered.

"Yes. When you were looking into his mind, I was looking into yours. I didn't even mean to, but I did."

"He killed me."

"Yes. It was bad for his business to have a daughter to look after. You were always getting into fights, you were rude to his partners, you were more trouble than you were worth. He killed you, Grace, and he made you his ghost in his machine."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I hope I never do."

* * *

Amy was biting and kicking but it didn't do much good. And Rory ran to save her, again, but was just kicked to the side. Brian was strong, stronger than any human being should be, and they didn't stand a chance.

Rory screamed his wife's name over and over.

"He _murdered _me."

"Yes."

"For no reason."

"Yes."

Grace screamed. It was a scream that would probably echo in the Doctor's mind forever. "Grace," he said, hating himself more than he had ever hated anything, "you have to remember what you felt when he killed you. I'm so sorry. But it's the only way."

"_I HATE HIM_!"

"Oh Grace, I know."

"_I'LL KILL HIM_!"

"Grace, remember. Save us. I'm so sorry."

"_I'LL MURDER HIM!_"

"Grace, Grace, think, you have to. I can take over once the robots are activated but only you can save us, Grace."

Grace sobbed in rage and despair.

"You're not a ghost, Grace. You're real. You can do it, I know."

* * *

"_You let me go! I'll _kill you! _Let me go! _You're worthless and evil and _you can't hurt me_! I've seen the world end!"

"_AMY_!"

* * *

Grace remembered.

"He took me to that machine. He killed me with that machine! Just to test it! Just to see if it would kill! Everything I'd ever been scared of, I _SAW_!"

"Oh, Grace, Grace."

"Monsters and death and _everything evil in the world_!"

The Doctor had his arms around her.

"It's working, Grace, it has to work. I'm so sorry."

* * *

Throughout the complex the robots changed.

One of them became Grace's monster under the bed, a hideous yellow creature with one staring eye. Another became a vampire, another a werewolf, as every monster from every story Grace had ever heard came to life.

And one of them, one of the many robots stored in a dark room on the floor below, became her mother. Because Brian had killed his wife as well, and told his child evil stories about the monster her mother had been.

* * *

Amy Pond was still screaming.

"You let me go! You let me go, you_ pathetic excuse_ for a man! When I was a little girl I'd bite adults if I didn't like them! _And I don't like you_!"

And from behind Brian a hideous green creature with huge teeth and vicious claws rose.

Brian saw its shadow on the wall and turned. He dropped Amy, and all three of the others ran to her.

The monster swiped its claws at Brian, flinging him across the room before he had time to scream. He hit the wall with a crack, and crumpled to the floor.

"_Is he dead_?" Amy shrieked.

"He'd better be," Mickey said. He stumbled to his feet.

"Amy," Rory said, "Amy, oh God..."

The monster lurched towards the door, ignoring them all.

Amy swallowed and reached out a hand. She poked Brian, hard. He didn't move.

"And also," she whispered, "I'm not a wide-eyed innocent."


	6. Chapter 6

"Grace," the Doctor whispered, "Grace, you did well." She seemed to be falling unconscious. The Doctor put his hands on her head.

"Right," he said. "Everything I fear."

* * *

The monster flickered and turned into the Doctor.

"Oh good lord," Mickey said.

"Doctor, is that you?" Rory asked, arms around Amy and looking half dead.

The Doctor shrugged. "Sort of. Wait a second..."

* * *

"Oh," the real Doctor said, "that will never do."

* * *

The Doctor flickered and turned into a Dalek.

"STAND BACK," it said, sounding very much like the Doctor. "I'M NOT REALLY A DALEK, I'M GOING TO BLOW THIS DOOR DOWN, OK?"

* * *

Another Dalek and a couple of Cybermen came down the corridor and wrenched open the door that kept the Doctor and Grace prisoner.

"Thanks very much, chaps," the Doctor said, and still holding Grace he ran through the complex.

* * *

Both sets of people collided in the corridor near the stairwell.

"No-one touch Grace!" the Doctor yelled over the noise. "She's a robot, it's her and me doing this, she's saved us!"

"Grace?" said Mickey.

"Her real name." The Doctor sank to the floor, still holding the unconscious girl. "Is everyone all right?"

They all nodded, although not enthusiastically.

"Brian?"

"Killed by one of the monsters," Mickey said.

The Doctor said nothing. He closed his eyes. A Toclafane, a Sontaran and a small boy could be seen at the end of the corridor.

"Doctor," Martha said, staring at them, "tell me that little kid's not the Master."

"It's the Master," the Doctor said wearily.

There was gunfire from the stairwell, and all of them looked up to see Andrews and his men coming upstairs.

"Amy. Martha. Mickey. Rory. I love and trust you all," the Doctor said. "Go to the main control room and grab whatever you can find that looks like it controls the transmitter. It might be a remote, a panel, I don't know. Just take it and bring it here."

All of them ran, and all of them looked back.

Within seconds, seven guns were aimed at the Doctor's head.

"What did you do to Brian Wilkinson?" Andrews said.

"He's dead," answered the Doctor. "This is the daughter he murdered."

Andrews gave no sign he'd even heard that part. "I know you don't like guns, Doctor. But mine is aimed right at you, and I think it would be quite fitting if I pulled the trigger right now."

"You won't," the Doctor said. "There's been _tremendous _evil on this planet. Evil that's beyond, I reckon, anything I've ever seen." His voice faltered but only a bit. "This," he gestured to Grace, "is what TomorrowCorp's done."

"Brian Wilkinson _is _TomorrowCorp," Andrews said. "It's only him, and us,"

"Right. Well, that makes things a little easier. And you know," he went on, "it's normally not like this at all. Normally some big, important, stupid human stands there with a gun at my head and I talk, and talk, and _talk _and he drops the gun. But I don't think that's going to happen today. I'm not going to appeal to whatever humanity you have. I'm not even sure you have any. I'm just going to defeat you."

"You and what army?" said Andrews.

The Doctor looked to his right, and grinned widely.

"Oh, I think...that one!"

Mickey, Amy, Rory and Martha stood at the end of the corridor. Martha was holding a small remote in her hand. And behind them there were Daleks, Cybermen, Toclafane, Autons, Sontarans, Angels, Reapers, Krillitane, countless more.

"Well done," the Doctor whispered.

Martha threw him the remote and he caught it.

"Thank you, Mrs Jones! Now, you lot," he said to Andrews. "You've met my friends, but that other lot are my _enemies_. You're familiar with the Daleks, I'm guessing?"

"Yes," Andrews snapped, but he was sweating at the sight of them.

"Killing machines- and so are the Cybermen, and the Autons. What about the Toclafane, are you familiar with them?"

"No."

The Doctor smiled and said in a low voice. "They once killed ten percent of an entire planet in a few minutes."

A few of the other men were backing away.

"The Sontarans- greatest military unit in the known universe. Weeping Angels- a whole army of assassins. Krillitane eat children, Reapers eat time, that small child there has enslaved whole planets! And do you know what all these people have in common?"

"No," said Andrews.

The Doctor grinned and said, "_They all ran away from me_."

Andrews flinched. And slowly lowered his gun. He looked at the Doctor's army...and then he and his men ran down the stairs.

"Lead quiet lives!" the Doctor yelled after them. "Or I'll find you, I promise."

He let go of Grace. The Daleks, the Cyberman, all of them turned back into robots as the illusion was broken. They clattered to the floor.

The Doctor broke the remote over his knee.

"Right," he said. "It's over."

Amy, Rory, Martha and Mickey, all looking worn out, collapsed on the floor next to him.

"Well done, all of you," the Doctor said. "I'm so sorry."

"What for?" asked Amy.

"For nearly getting you all killed."

For one brief second something frightened and horrified flickered in Amy's eyes, but then- thank God- it was gone. "Rubbish! This is our day job."

Grace stirred.

"She's awake," the Doctor said.

"Wait!" Mickey whispered. "You broke the transmitter! How is she...?"

"It really doesn't matter," the Doctor answered. "People's souls can survive in robot bodies. Ask Rory."

Martha and Mickey looked at him in surprise.

"Maybe another time," Rory said.

Grace moved, and opened her eyes.

"Welcome back," the Doctor said quietly. "I'm so sorry for what I did."

"It's...okay," Grace said. She looked around at them all, and saw the broken remote on the ground. She stared in surprise, it all seeming to not quite click in her head.

"Grace, you're real," the Doctor said. "You can have back your life."

Grace stared at him. "My father," she whispered.

"He's dead, Grace."

Mickey stared towards the room where Brian's body lay.

"I'm not real," Grace said. "How can I be real? I bleed fake blood!"

"But your soul is there. That's all that matters. You saved us all, Grace. And now you deserve a proper life."

Rory grinned and suddenly he shrieked, "_Welcome to the human race_!" and flung his arms around her. Grace was taken aback, but it seemed to do the trick, because she hugged back and cried. And Amy joined in.

"I love a happy ending," the Doctor said.

* * *

The Doctor, Grace, and all the others walked down to the floor below. The Doctor paused outside a storeroom, pulled out the sonic screwdriver which he'd found in Brian's desk, and opened the door.

"I saw her in your head, Grace," he said. They walked into the room and amongst the robots there sat a woman. She had been holding a bloody knife, but it had fallen to the ground, and she looked at them blankly when they entered.

"It's your mother, Grace," the Doctor said. "Your mother's soul."

Grace let out a little gasp. The woman too let out a little gasp, and they walked towards each other.

"Dad said you tried to kill me," Grace whispered. "He told me when I was a baby you stabbed me with knives."

"No," said the woman, "No, Grace, I'd never do that. You were my baby. I loved-"

But Grace had run to her and hugged her and suddenly everyone was crying. Even Mickey wiped a tear from his eye.

"I _really _love a happy ending," the Doctor said.

* * *

They wandered through the land of horror. Night was falling now.

"So," Mickey said to Rory, "are you really a robot?"

"I was once, yeah, but I'm not now."

"Was that before or after you were dead?"

"Um, after."

"Wow," Mickey said, "you've really been around."

They reached the TARDIS and gradually the five of them filed in. They sat around the console and looked at each other.

"Grace will be okay, right?" Martha asked.

"Oh yes. She will be."

"What'll happen to the planet now?"

"I don't know. I think I might nip back in time at some point and slide another note in someone's desk or some such thing. Get someone good there."

"Good idea."

"Where are we going next, Doctor?" Amy asked. "I fancy something a bit quieter. Maybe nip back to Leadworth, do some laundry, see my parents?"

Rory nodded. "Yeah, I'm up for that."

"And you know what? I think I am too," the Doctor said, and he hit a button on the console.

As the old engines started whirring, Amy touched Rory on the shoulder.

"Thanks for trying to save me," she said. "And that was a great speech you gave. Very Doctoresque."

"But I didn't save you, Amy," Rory said quietly. "You'd have died right in front of me if the Doctor hadn't done something."

"Aw, come on. You would have done. You always save me."

"Amy," Rory said.

"Yeah, Mr Pond?"

"I'm scared when I think about all the danger you and me are in all the time. Really really scared."

"Yeah-"

"I'll keep doing it, I'll always keep doing it, for you and for him and for...me. Sort of. Maybe. I dunno. But today was just terrifying. I just want to think about the future for a bit-"

"You know-"

"You're my wife and I love you and I want to protect you so badly even though you do that yourself. Just, what if we have kids? What if it was them, being the Doctor's people and saving the world? Could we handle that? It'd be like having a kid in the army or something. My cousin Tom's in the army and his parents, I've seen what they go through-"

"Ahem-"

"And I've got all these memories of protecting you, but they sort of fade in and out and it's _weird_, having all this stuff in my head. And I know you have the same thing, and it's like we've lived so many lives already, but what I really want to know- what I need to know- is if this one's going to be ok."

"Rory," Amy said firmly. "I love you too, you prat. And it'll be fine. I promise. And I promise not to die as long as _you _promise not to die, okay?"

"Okay."

"And I figure those kids we might have will just enjoy the holidays with this mad uncle they sort of have, and Mummy and Daddy might have slightly odd day jobs. You know- the Doctor, the Nurse, and the sexy one."

Rory beamed. "Thank you, Amy."

"I'm the sexy one, of course," she said cheerily, and kissed him. Then she called out. "Hey! Doctor! Hurry up back to Leadworth. Miss the place."

"Then kindly quit that canoodling and get back here," he said. "Come along!"

Amy and Rory and Mickey and Martha took their places at the console.

"Ponds! Smiths! Joneses!" the Doctor announced. "Follow my lead."

And they flew it back to Earth.


End file.
